A private TV channel has claimed that the prime minister asked the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to provide a Boeing-777 aircraft for carrying him and other cabinet members to Khatmandu, for participating in the SAARC Conference on November 25.

Sources told that the PM Secretariat wrote a confidential and immediate note to the PIA administration, directing it to arrange a VVIP Boeing-777 aircraft for PM Nawaz Sharif and send it to Islamabad.

The national airliner is already short of many passenger planes, while in case of arranging another plane for the premier will cost it losses worth of several crore rupees per day, hundreds of thousands of fuel is apart. Moreover, the PM Secretariat also directed for keeping an Airbus 320 aircraft on stand-by for the PM, the channel said.